Three Years Hard Labor

In the earlier parts of the twentieth century in New South Wales, a prisoner could be given a sentence that included hard labour. The sentence meant just that, and the prisoner would find himself swinging a sledge hammer during his confinement. By the middle of the twentieth century, sentences with hard labour were still imposed, but the hard labour during his confinement was not enforceable. Later in the twentieth century, the judicial option of sentencing to hard labour was removed as an anachronism.

For much of the twentieth century, many men were still actually employed as labourers. Many such men were employed as farm labourers, many were employed as building and road construction labourers, and many were still employed in true sweated labour in steel mills and the like. However, in New Soulth Wales, that has now long since passed. Most of the hard physical work has been taken over by an ever-growing range of machinery and robots. The majority of the great feats of infrastructure construction, the benefits of which we citizens now enjoy, were largely the products of men labouring with picks, shovels and riveting hammers. Road and dam construction was very largely done by men who swung implements, and men who used horses pulling drays, and earth scoops and the like. Such hard labour by free citizens is now also mostly anachronistic.

During the Great Depression of the late 1920’s and the 1930’s, the governments of the day made the same decision as our present governments in response to economic crisis. They decided to invest in infrastructure as one prong of the effort to keep men employed and to keep money circulating in order to lessen the disastrous impact of the depression. For instance, the New South Wales government introduced a massive programme of infrastructure development in the form of installing sewer mains. Men were employed in pick and shovel labour digging the trenches for the mains. This was “back breaking” work, especially for those men who did not have a labouring job history. The wage was the notorious “two bob a day” of dole money, and it was commonplace for foremen who were not satisfied with the effort of any man, to stand over him on the edge of the trench and flip the man two bob and sack him on the spot. As heart breaking and as back breaking as this system may have been, though, it was introduced in an era when true hard manual labour was still the order of the day, and was done by sometimes huge gangs of men. The construction of such infrastructure actually employed vast numbers.

Many of our federal politicians in present day Australia did not live through or in the Great Depression. Our esteemed leader, Kevvie Rudder, certainly was not alive at that time. However, they have, in their infinite wisdom, decided to follow the same strategy as their parliamentary forebears. They are to invest in infrastructure development. What a great employment opportunity this will afford the massive earth-moving machines, the great road laying contraptions and the huge automated railway line laying and adjusting gadgets. What wonderful continuity of employment these machines will be able to demonstrate in their job history summaries. I have nothing at all against significant development of infrastructure, as it is very sorely needed, but it will have a very insignificant impact on human employees. A few employees will benefit, some sub-contractors will benefit more, and the project development companies will financially benefit to an enormous degree. Infrastructure construction may have many public benefits, but the employment of large numbers of working citizens is not one of them.

In another stroke of anachronistic brilliance, the Commonwealth government, also decided on another prong for their rescue of a failing economy. Within the month, certain classes of recipients of Australian government assistance, such as aged pensioners, will receive $1,400 for a single person and $2,100 for a couple. This gratuity is said to be “a down payment before comprehensive reform of the pension system next year,” and prompted by the pensioners having demonstrated to the government that they are financially hard up. However, these gratuities were announced within, and as part of, the government’s package of moves to prop up the failing economy. It takes little imagination to see that the government’s reasoning was the following: economic crisis -- spending contracting -- government infusion of money needed to prop up spending -- which group of people is hard up and will therefore spend whatever they are given, quick smart and lively, the pensioners -- give the pensioners a hand-out -- thus money from government will rapidly circulate in the economy. What the government has failed to take into account, is that unlike them, the wise politicians, the poor pensioners are overwhelmingly of the mature years that survivors of the Great Depression enjoy. These pensioners have learnt, in direct exposure, or by instruction by their parents who learnt by direct exposure, the salient lessons of the Great Depression. One of the most critical of these lessons is, that if one receives a little nest-egg, one does not hurry out to the marketplace to spend it forthwith, but takes great care of it, and if earthly possible tucks it away safely in case things get much worse. In other words, in harsh times, it is highly unlikely that pensioners will squander their precious gifts.

Thus, the government move to spend on infrastructure, will benefit a few immediately in monetary terms, and the masses hardly at all, ever. The move to stimulate the economy through pensioner gifts, in monetary terms will in effect, benefit very few immediately, and the masses a very modest amount, but only later on when the economy improves, anyhow.

Battler

Directors in the Wrong Direction

The latest global financial crisis has many interesting facets. All of these can be boiled down to frailties of human morality.

Perhaps most facets can be boiled down to reveal a major ingredient of greed. Greed is inherent in any situation where one person wants more than another person. Greed becomes particularly ugly and pernicious when one person not only wants more than another person, but also considers that they are rightfully entitled to more than another person.

Some people consider that they deserve a greater share of the limited pie because they needed to study hard for years to fit them for top jobs and positions. They may well have studied diligently for years to achieve formal qualifications, but there are two dominant reasons why they were able to do so. The first is that they may have been born into better financial and property circumstances than some others that they consider lesser. The second is that they may have been born with a greater capacity, either physical or intellectual or both, than some others that they consider lesser. In either case, their endowment was a fortuitous event that did not result from their own doing.

Many directors of companies (or corporations, as they are referred to in many places around the globe) feel that they are superior beings who deserve more than the average worker in their organisations. This is particularly so for CEO’s (Chief Executive Officers) of large corporations. It has become sickeningly common to hear news items of corporate heads being paid annual bonuses that amount to what would equal the total average annual salaries of fifty to two hundred of their workers. Of course, if the comparison were made with workers in Third World countries, it would be equal to many thousands of workers.

Directors of companies, and CEO’s, owe their prime legal duties to the shareholders of their companies. It is their duty to maximize profits for their investors. Apart from this, they have a legal duty to act within the laws of the states and countries where their companies operate. They have no obligation over and above these duties, to act in consideration of their customers, the public good within their operating nations, or the local or global environment. Within the frameworks of the corporate legislations around the world, it is often greed that prevents them from taking seriously, any duty to these other areas.

Bearing in mind the financial turmoil that is now evident, together with the ecological turmoil that is now evident with respect to species becoming extinct or endangered, forests being denuded, and global climate change, perhaps it is time that global thinking was brought to bear on the legal duties of company or corporation heads. Generally speaking, corporation legislations have grown in a piecemeal, ad hoc fashion that has perpetuated the thinking of the industrial revolution. Such thinking, and the support for notions of rightful and deserved entitlement that form part of it, have now served their time and are, in many respects counter to the overall good and welfare of the publics of this planet.

If governments were to have their perceived duties focused upon the citizens of their nations, and the environments of their nations and of the globe, they could make a positive start to world betterment and equity by simply writing into their corporation legislations, a simple, legally enforceable hierarchy of duties for corporation directors, including CEO’s (who act as de facto directors, at least.) An example of such a hierarchy of duties would be: 1) a duty of care to the environment; 2) a duty to the public good of their state and/or country; and the world; 3) a duty of care to their employees; 4) a duty of care to their customers/clients/and consumers; and 5) a duty to the interests of their shareholders.

Crankyfella

Performing Seals

Have you ever wondered why fish and other marine creatures suffer cruel deaths as a result of their ingestion of, or entanglement in, plastic bags such as those supplied with every tuppence-ha’penny’s worth of stuff that is purchased at supermarkets and greengrocery shops?

The answer is pretty simple. Plastics, nowadays, are not made of bio-degradable cellulose materials. They are made mainly from petro-chemical by-products that have incredible tensile strength.

I happen to be a magnificent specimen of semi-senile manhood, with 20 centimetre biceps that make any well developed grasshopper that I come into contact with, admire me as though I were Arnie Squashanegger. I have even had young children see me on the beach and then run for cover behind their parents just because they think that I may be some supernatural alien being intent on tearing to minute shreds, anything that stands in my way.

Imagine, then, the frail and the weak, especially those of senior years (which is politically correct speech for “as old as the hills”) when they have tried unsuccessfully for three and a half hours to get the plastic wrapping off some of their junk mail so that they can definitively classify it as pure junk that should be disposed of. Not only do the expletives worsen in subject of reference and absolute frequency, but their blood pressure starts to head up toward the ceiling of the twenty-fifth floor. (Systolic blood pressure, that is the higher of the two readings, behaves in that way any time that we do isometric exercise, which is exercise with exertion but no motion.)

After such an episode, it is customary to have a cup of tea, a Bex, and a good lie down. However, that is where things take a turn for the seriously worse. The cup of tea requires a slosh of milk in it to make it soothing for some. Invariably in such circumstances, a fresh bottle of milk has to be opened. (This is an example of Murphy’s Law of Household Tragedy.) Of course, the milk bottle is not one of those lovely glass ones that we used to enjoy, complete with its crimped aluminium lid that even a reasonably cluey starling or magpie could open. Oh no, it is a plastic bottle with a series of temper-testing lids. The first of these is a plastic screw-on lid that is actually joined to a non-screw-on section for “security purposes.” Any lesser developed person than I must be driven to a near frenzy by these contraptions. Eventually, when that modern version of a chastity belt is removed, one is horrifyingly faced with the toughest keeper of purity of them all: the plasticised metallic stick-on lid with a little semi-circular tab that is meant to make its removal easy by lifting it and pulling it upwards and backwards at the same time. Whilst the victim is trying to settle down to enjoy the nice cup of tea, complete with its milk that had been labelled for recommended use before ten days after opening, the neighbours are considering calling the mental health team because of all the screams emanating from the victim’s residence.

Now I think that I have made my point, so I will not go into the medication bottles that are hermetically sealed with a heat-shrunken plastic sleeve around the neck of the bottle and extending over the top rim of the lid. I will purposely refrain from describing the necessary technique of getting a sharp and pointy knife into the sealing plastic in order to maim it to the extent that it can be pealed off. A complete description of this manoeuvre could prove to be off-putting to the thousands of youngsters who regularly read this blog. Any mention of the hand wounds and the gushing blood would probably be reckoned very distasteful. It will suffice to say that it is not a nice event for anyone to endure, especially if they are seeking blood pressure or angina medication as a result of their having opened, or attempted to open, a modern plastic milk bottle.


Crankyfella